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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Gosnell is Not an Exception

Star Parker

Kirsten Powers has done a national service, by virtue of her now famous USA Todaycolumn, of getting the news of the trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on the national radar screen.This of course, is the horror story of a cesspool in Philadelphia posturing as an abortion clinic, operating without inspection for 17 years. Gosnell, the doctor who ran the place, has been formally charged of murder of one woman and seven infants.However, the grand jury report and testimony of family and staff at the trial indicate that if there were records in this dump, where life and death were meted out daily, Gosnell would be indicted for hundreds of murders of live children.Most likely, and sadly, this horror story will have its fifteen minutes of fame and the nation will move on. The national press got dragged unwillingly to report it, finally, because of Ms. Powers’ courageous column. But there is no way to keep them on a story they don’t want to cover.Maybe we can keep this story alive by keeping in mind a few things.What was happening in Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society clinic was not some bizarre exception to the rule.You can ask Day Gardner, founder and president of the National Black Pro-life Union. Her life is dedicated to covering these realities. In her words, “This is not an exception. These realities are happening every day all over our country.”Despite the sense that no one was paying attention to the Gosnell story before Kirsten Powers wrote about it, know that Dr. Gardner, Dr. Alveda King, and other pro-life activists were demonstrating outside Gosnell’s clinic as early as February 2011.They held a press conference about the trial on April 4, a week before Powers’ column appeared. Alveda King wrote in her blog the day before, “…Rev. Clenard Childress and Dr. Day Gardner…are in Philadelphia reporting on the Kermit Gosnell trial that the mainstream media is virtually ignoring.“Just this week, The Washington Times has reported that Gosnell-like conditions have existed at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Vice President Biden’s own backyard in Delaware.The Times reports “Abortions have been suspended at a Delaware Planned Parenthood, after several 911 calls made from within the clinic prompted a new investigation by Health and Human Services.”Two nurses quit to protect their licenses, one saying “I couldn’t tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was.”According to the story, “Since Jan. 4, five patients have been rushed to the emergency room.”Read the rest of the column